This section provides links to resources of special relevance to those wanting to help local communities engage in the main housing challenges facing the UK.

These are:

Where and how to build a large amount of new housing to cater for growing demand. An additional 240,000 new homes each year are planned – approximately 2 million by 2016, 3 million by 2020.

How to make new and existing neighbourhoods more sustainable, so reducing energy demands and helping combat climate change.

In this section you will find information on how planning for housing works in the UK and how individuals and communities can get involved. You will also find links to a range of tools and information sources on this website and elsewhere.

Canít find what you want? Suggestions for improvement? Any comments? Please use the Housing UK submission form or see Contact us.

It is important that people are equipped with the evidence about local housing pressures, demand, and supply and to know the processes that shape decisions on housing locally. Information on local housing pressures is available at www.communities.gov.uk/

Much of the material on communityplanning.net will be useful to those concerned with involving local communities in housing. Explore for yourself using the menus on the left.

For those in a hurry, here are some direct links to material most likely to be useful. On this site:

Improvement and Development Agency for Local Government (IDeA)www.idea.gov.uk/idk/
Good practice on housing and on planning for housing

Local Housing Pressures Toolkit www.communities.gov.uk/housing/
Empowering local communities in decisions about housing - information on local housing pressures. Some of the most useful or popular data, presented by type and other variables. These information sources provide an indication of local housing pressures, to enable a community to reach its own views on the challenge its local area faces.
The National Housing and Planning Advisory Unitwww.communities.gov.uk/
Set up to help make market housing more affordable

Planning Advisory Service (PAS).www.pas.gov.uk/pas/
Good practice on housing and on planning for housing

The Planning Portalwww.planningportal.gov.uk/
Planning and building regulations resource for England and Wales. Use this site to learn about planning and building regulations; and use the links to apply for planning permission, find out about development near you, appeal against a decision and research government policy.

On other sites

Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH)www.cih.org/
Professional body for people involved in housing and communities.

A wide range of statistics on English housing can be found both on the DCLG website and in the annual UK Housing Review produced by Prof. Steve Wilcox.

Do you have anysuggestions on how the Housing UK section could be improved or any specific detail that you think should be included?

Thanks; This section of the website and much of the material linked from it has been funded by Communities and Local Government as part of an initiative to provide a toolkit on community involvement in housing provision and improvement.